04.11.2024

The English Garden and its future

Building design

English Garden: Many visitors enjoy the sun in the southern part of the English Garden. (Photo: Ignacio Brosa / Unsplash)

The English Garden and the future: after eleven years of commitment to Grub / Lejeune, the English Garden is growing together again. Work will begin in 2023.

English Garden: With an area of 375 hectares, the park in Munich is one of the largest in the world. Since 2010, an initiative led by the planning couple Grub / Lejeune has been campaigning to tunnel under the park. This is intended to reunite the parts of the English Garden that have been separated by a traffic lane since 1966. In 2017, the city council voted in favor of the tunnel, and construction work is scheduled to begin in 2023 over a period of four years.

The English Garden is one of Munich’s most famous landmarks. The park, which stretches along the Isar river through the north-eastern part of the city, is home to numerous must-visits for tourists: historic buildings such as the Monopteros or beer gardens such as the one at the Chinese Tower. The English Garden is also a popular place for the people of Munich to relax. Last but not least, the standing wave in the Eisbach is an internationally renowned surf spot in the middle of the Bavarian capital.

With an area of 375 hectares, the English Garden is one of the largest parks in the world. It even surpasses New York’s Central Park or Tempelhofer Park in Berlin by several hectares. For many years, however, there has been a flaw that runs through the English Garden like a scar, splitting it in two, so to speak. We are talking about the Isarring. Created in the 1940s as a military freight road, it has been one of the busiest corridors in Munich since 1966. Every day, 100,000 cars pass through it.

The Isarring divides the Englischer Garten into a smaller area to the south of around two kilometers in length and 130 hectares in area (the original “Englischer Garten”) and a northern area of 245 hectares and three kilometers in length (the “Hirschau”). Pedestrians and cyclists can currently cross the Isarring via a narrow bridge and thus travel between the two parts. The bridge acts as a kind of bottleneck for park visitors: While the southern part of the English Garden is relatively busy for both tourists and locals, relatively few people cross the bridge to get to the northern part.

Reunification: From utopia to resolution in seven years

Hermann Grub and Petra Lejeune, who run an architecture firm in Munich’s Schwabing district, have been passionately campaigning for the reunification of the English Garden for many years. The idea: to reconnect the two parts of the park, the Isarring should be moved underground in a tunnel. Grub and Lejeune first presented their proposal for a 380-metre-long tunnel under the Isar Ring to the Munich City Council in 2010. Initially without success; the idea was dismissed as appealing but utopian. However, this did not stop the architect couple from continuing to tirelessly promote their vision. They describe the project as their “biggest and most important initiative”.

This was not to remain without success. Five years after their defeat at the Munich City Council, the architect couple already had the support of over 80 percent of Munich residents. In a representative survey in 2015, they were in favor of uniting the separate parts of the park. Just one year later, the state of Bavaria pledged 40 million euros in funding for the project, and in 2017 Munich City Council decided to build the park tunnel. The estimated costs for the measures amount to around 125 million euros.

The Isarring will then be lowered over one kilometer and run under the English Garden over a length of around 350 meters. A correspondingly wide green link will be created above ground. The space-consuming access loops from the Isarring for the restaurants at Kleinhesseloher See and Hirschau will then also be eliminated. An access road via a service road will replace the current traffic loops; new parking spaces will be created on the south-eastern part of the Isar ring.

Construction work is set to begin in 2023 and is expected to last until 2027. By then, not only will the English Garden once again be a continuous park, but its original visual axes, path connections and biotope network will also be restored. Munich’s motorists can also look forward to this. The tunneled Isarring will have six lanes instead of just four. This should also solve congestion problems on Ifflandstrasse and Dietlindenstrasse.

You can find out more about the tunneling of the Isarring in the area of the English Garden in Munich at “M-ein Englischer Garten”.

In 2017, G+L already wrote about the vision of (M)ein Englischer Garten. Read more about the utopian beginnings that are now becoming reality.

23.03.2026

Industry insights

Between the Old and the New

Building design

The extension to the Technical Town Hall in Tübingen was designed by a+r Architekten. Enveloped by a high-quality brick façade, the new building follows the Brunnenstrasse in an arc. Photo: Marcus Ebener

The Technical City Hall in Tübingen, designed by a+r Architekten, pays homage to postwar architecture with its simple construction principles and minimal use of materials. At the same time, the architects adapted the building to the present day—transforming it into an open, community-oriented structure built using resource-efficient construction methods. At the heart of the ensemble—comprising both the old and new buildings—is a light-filled atrium where the original facade, light, slate, wood, windows, transparency, sustainability, energy, A/V ratio, perforated facade, Passive House standard, renewableenergy, and geothermal energy—geothermal energy: the use of thermal energy from the earth as a renewable energy source. Geothermal energy is an alternative form of energy based on the use of geothermal heat. It involves harnessing the thermal energy stored in the earth to generate electricity and heat. Geothermal energy is a sustainable and environmentally friendly energy source, as it isvirtually… and solar systems. The expansion represents a sustainable and value-stable investment by the city in its administration and in the care of its citizens. In the architecture, this philosophy is aptly reflected in the use of recycled concrete, the low maintenance requirements due to the durable brick facade, and the high flexibility of the floor plans.

Gateway to the City Center and Urban Green Space

With their design, the architects deliberately developed a solution that differed from the competition’s specifications. Unlike the requirement, which called for the extension with its main entrance to be located at the rear of the existing building on the north side, a+r Architekten placed the extension on the south side between the existing building and Brunnenstraße. “It was important to us that the extension follow the curve of the street and form a clearly defined urban space. The result is an inviting main entrance and unobstructed views toward the city center. On the north side, thanks to our compact, space-saving structure, we deliberately created space for a valuable green area along the Ammer,” summarizes the project manager.

Facts & Figures:

Planning and construction period: 2016–2019
Design firm: a+r Architekten GmbH
Client: University City of Tübingen
Project address: Tübingen
GFA: Gross floor area of the existing building: 4,975 m². The gross floor area of the addition is approximately 3,165 m²

About a+r Architekten

a+r Architekten is committed to solid, environmentally responsible, and forward-looking architecture, with proven expertise in sustainable construction—including the renovation of existing buildings. Founded in 1985 by Prof. Gerd Ackermann and Prof. Hellmut Raff, the firm—with offices in Stuttgart and Tübingen—employs around 130 people and is currently led by Oliver Braun, Florian Gruner, and Alexander Lange. a+r Architekten primarily works for public clients, industry and commerce, municipal housing authorities, and social institutions. The firm focuses on appropriate, ecological, functional, and—as a result—innovative construction methods and has been honored with prestigious awards for its work.

www.aplusr.de

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13.12.2024

Academy, Portrait

My affectionate affair, architecture – Mail from Berlin (2)

Building design

Baumeister Academy
Berlin

Part of the up-and-coming Europacity: the Kunstcampus project by léonwohlhage is nearing completion and offers high-quality living on the site of a former art gallery (Photo: Andi Maierhofer)

Baumeister Academy winner Andreas Maierhofer is in love. Heavily. The first weeks of his internship at leónwohlhage in Berlin are over and his passionate liaison with architecture is in full swing.

New city, new office, new people, new projects, new tasks, new love?

I’m in a frenzy of emotions. I met her four weeks ago. She is exciting. She has cast a spell over me. And now she won’t let me go. She wants more. More time, more attention. Initial infatuation turned into passionate devotion and now a solid relationship. While I tried to keep my new affair at a distance at the beginning, she became more demanding and affectionate from day to day. I’m not talking about a woman, but about an old acquaintance, architecture.

The adventure in Berlin with léonwohlhage has been going on for four weeks now and it still tingles like on the first day. Only the classic shame that you feel at the beginning of every new relationship has now given way to a pleasant familiarity. I have found my place in the competition team. Here I work with my colleagues in an area of responsibility that probably comes closest to that of the university. Not only because it primarily involves purely conceptual activities, but also because it has parallels in terms of somewhat unsuccessful time management – whether that’s depressing or reassuring remains to be seen. In contrast to university, however, it is not, as is so often the case, various leisure activities that usually seem more interesting than working on your own design until shortly before the deadline. It’s the continuous development of each idea. Every day until the deadline is spent questioning the concept anew. It is not uncommon for the best ideas to come just before the deadline. Which brings us back to the dilemma: the exciting but time-consuming love-hate relationship with architecture.

Social life gives way to architecture

In the last two weeks before the deadline, the days get longer and longer and you share more and more dinners with your work colleagues. I realize that you need a lot of passion for architecture to give yourself over to it so recklessly. It’s good to do this in an environment where you can have a beer at midnight between all the plans.